Chorus Skating

by Alan Dean Foster

  Percussive counterpoint would be just the thing, Jon-Tom decided excitedly. Unfortunately, the requisite instrument was not available, and there was no way to put such a request through to their extradimensional friend.

  Which, as usual, left it up to Jon-Tom.

  “A simple, straightforward rhythm,” he told the otter. “Something to underlie the duar line and back me up!”

  Resuming his song, he invented some hasty lyrics to fit the Coopertuned melody. Compared to some of the things he’d tried to spellsing up in the past, this seemed a comparatively simple conjuration. Though with his spellsinging, one never knew.

  A purple haze tinged with blue boiled from the duar. Unexpectedly, it continued to expand and grow. Puzzled and concerned, Jon-Tom didn’t know what else to do except finish the spellsong.

  Higher and wider ballooned the haze. He was about to give up when it began to dissipate, revealing that in spite of his doubts he’d been successful.

  Maybe a little too successful.

  There was only one drum, a blue chrome-bottomed timpani, but it tended to make up in size for what it lacked in numbers, being only slightly smaller than their boat. Rising to his feet, Mudge braced himself against the thunderous musical storm that continued to blast from the monoliths.

  “Now that,” he exclaimed, eyes shining, “is wot I calls a drum!”

  Clambering up the sides with unmatched otterish agility, Mudge soon found himself standing atop the taut, dance-floor-sized membrane. Removing quiver and bow, vest and pants, boots and jerkin, he stripped down to his bare fur. When Jon-Tom flashed him the go-ahead, the otter took a deep breath and began to dance. Wildly, maniacally, with the kind of energy that among all creatures only an otter could muster. It was an expression of sheer unrestrained joy and otter unadulterated delight, a 9.5 on the musical Richter scale.

  It also had rhythm.

  It made the difference, it carried the moment.

  With the otter stepping out a berserk backbeat on the brobdignagian drum and the twin ziggurat speakers blasting Jon-Tom’s inspired modifications of Cooper’s classic lyrics, Hieronymus Hinckel, his morbid minions, and their ghastly concatenation were blown to bits. Feathers were blown off wings, worn leathery membranes shredded, instruments ripped apart.

  Hinckel railed mercilessly at them as he clung to the ground, his fingers digging desperately into the sandy soil. There was little to differentiate his screeching from his singing, Jon-Tom decided. His demolished guitar ended up high in a tree, a clump of stringy rubble. Smashed like a tin shingle, the flattened harmonica caught a gusting chord and disappeared southward, a rectangular Frisbee caught up in the tintinabulatory tide.

  The soldiers and princesses hung on as the music roared over them, shaking the very foundations of the island. It was not unlike, Jon-Tom reflected, a couple of concerts he’d attended. No wonder he was having such a good time.

  “Enough, please!” The thin, reedy voice was barely audible above the reverb. Utterly exhausted, his clothes hanging in shreds, Hinckel somehow clung to a bent-over sapling. His gaunt body was stretched out parallel to the ground, fluttering in the speaker-wind like a thin, fleshy pennant as the music threatened to sweep him away.

  Jon-Tom let his fingers fall from the duar’s strings, stilling the thunder. Black cable trailing behind, he ascended the slight slope of the beach until he was staring down at the gasping, pummeled musician. Hinckel lay on his side, his scrawny chest rising and falling like a bellows.

  “You promise? No more trouble, no more stealing of other people’s music?” Hinckel nodded vigorously, despondently.

  “Good.” Cutting loose with a final warning riff that balled his whining antagonist into a fetal position, Jon-Tom shifted the duar to a position of rest. For the first time ever, it was actually hot to the touch.

  But then it had never made use of anywhere near this degree of amplification.

  Gently he tugged on the end of the cable. The flat terminus pulled free of the duar, its tip singed and blackened. A few wisps of smoke curled skyward.

  All was not silence. Climbing to their feet, the princesses chattered as they struggled to adjust their raiment. They joined the soldiers and Jon-Tom in gathering around the base of the colossal drum.

  Tilting back his head, Jon-Tom cupped his hands to his mouth. “That’s enough, Mudge!”

  “Wot’s that you say, mate?” As the otter leaned over the side, it seemed to Jon-Tom that a few curls of smoke rose from the tips of his whiskers as well.

  “I said, you can stop now!” the spellsinger screamed at the top of his lungs.

  The otter tapped the top of his head. “Can’t ’ear a thing you’re sayin’, mate. Got to learn to use your voice.”

  Clearing his throat, Jon-Tom drew a finger across it.

  “Oi, ’tis like that, is it? Righty-ho.” Vanishing beyond the rim of the instrument for several moments, the otter soon reappeared fully dressed and shinnied down the side to rejoin them.

  At the bottom he exchanged a congratulatory hug first with his friend, then with the soldiers, and finally with the princesses, lingering in the grasp of several of the latter until they finally had to push him away.

  “Been witness to plenty o’ your spellsingin’, mate, but this be the first time I’ve ever ’elped you in it. Bugger me for a goosed gopher if it weren’t fun!”

  “It often is.” Jon-Tom was smiling broadly.

  “’Ave to speak up, mate. I can barely ’ear you. ’Tis fun, all right, except on those all too frequent occasions when your magic-makin’ is more than a bit off.” Gaze narrowing, he tried to look behind his friend.

  “Speaking o’ folks wot are a bit off, where’s that putrid excuse for a warm-blooded biped?”

  Jon-Tom gestured over his shoulder. “Back there, trying to catch his breath.”

  They found Hinckel where Jon-Tom had left him, somewhat recovered from the pounding he’d taken but still in no condition to offer so much as a modicum of resistance, even had he been so inclined. Rolling over, the erstwhile master of all music found himself staring up at an assortment of unensorceled but nonetheless very efficient metal blades wielded by Mudge and the quartet of soldiers.

  Pauko looked over at his friend Heke. “Why not just cut his throat and be done with it?”

  “Quick solution for a small problem.” Karaukul thrust the point of his halberd closer to Hinckel’s neck.

  “No, please! Don’t kill me.” Their former nemesis scrambled to his knees. “I just wanted people to appreciate my music, that’s all.” He turned forlornly to Jon-Tom. “You’re a musician; you understand.”

  “I understand music,” the spellsinger replied quietly. “I understand wanting to be famous and respected.” He shook his head slowly. “Swiping everyone else’s music so they’d have to listen to you I don’t understand.” He waxed philosophical.

  “Every artist has to be able to handle criticism.” A small smile escaped his face as he caught Mudge watching. “I’ve had to cope with it most of my life. For example, I’m told that my own singing leaves something to be desired. It took a long time and a lot of practice for me to improve it to where it is today.”

  “Which ain’t very far,” the otter added under his breath.

  “I’ll practice, I’ll work at it.” Hinckel was frantic. “I’ll get better on my own.”

  “What’s all this talk?” Pauko jabbed with his halberd. “Kill him.”

  “Or at least send him back. To his world, wot was once yours.” Mudge’s voice dripped contempt. “Some’ow I don’t see ’im as bein’ much o’ a threat there.”

  Jon-Tom was uncertain. “Transposing people back and forth between our worlds never struck me as a good idea, Mudge. I don’t want people commuting between the two. Folks from hereabouts wouldn’t understand my world, and those from there would spoil it here.”

  “I don’t want to go back.” Hinckel was pleading. “People … people laughed at me.”

  “They ’av
e some taste, then,” observed Mudge.

  Hinckel sat back on his heels. “I kind of like it here.”

  “Easy to say when you have power.” Umagi looked ready to wring the human’s neck the instant Jon-Tom gave the word. “But can you live among others as an ordinary commoner?”

  “One who’ll take legitimate criticism?” Jon-Tom added.

  “I’ll try anything. I didn’t mean to hurt anybody. I just wanted …” he hesitated, choking up, “I just wanted an audience.”

  Heke and Karaukul looked at each other and pinched their nostrils.

  “Hey, I can get better!” Hinckel climbed to his feet. “Anyone can get better.” He gazed imploringly at Jon-Tom. “I’ll do anything you ask.” The skinny figure had been transformed from threatening to pathetic.

  “All right,” Jon-Tom told him evenly. “But before we part, I’m going to lay one heavy delayed-action spellsong on you. If you break your promise—”

  “I won’t, no way!”

  “Well then, maybe we can—”

  It was at that point that the three remaining active members of Pancreatic Sludge appeared, quickly appraised the situation, and fell on the hapless Hinckel with kicks and blows. Fortunately they were too tired and enfeebled to do any real damage before Jon-Tom and the soldiers could pull them off the whimpering singer.

  “Hang him up by his heels!” Gathers bawled. “I’ll stuff that harmonica up his—”

  Jon-Tom stepped between the terrified Hinckel and his former band mates. “That’s enough. You’re coming with us. All four of you.”

  Mudge’s jaw dropped. “With us? Oi, mate, wot’s got into you?”

  “There’s room on the boat,” Jon-Tom insisted.

  The otter sighed heavily. “Jinny-tob, there ain’t been ‘room’ on that bum-boat since the third princess climbed aboard. But if that’s wot you want, I’d just like to bloody well know why.”

  “We can’t leave them here. This island won’t support them.”

  “You can say that again.” Zimmerman patted his empty stomach meaningfully.

  Jon-Tom continued. “And while I’m sure Mr. Hinckel here wouldn’t think of reneging on his promises, I’d feel better if I knew he was being watched over by some responsible authority.”

  “Thank you, thank you!” Nervously eyeing his former associates, Hinckel hung close to Jon-Tom. “What do you want me to do?”

  “For a start, I’d recommend voice training.” His attention shifted to the waiting, watching princesses. “Perhaps at some unusually tolerant royal court. I’d think twenty years or so might do it.”

  “Twenty years!” Hinckel blanched.

  “It worked for me. Maybe by then you’ll have learned how to carry a tune.”

  The younger man nodded reluctantly, then began searching the ground. “My harmonica. My guitar.”

  “Gone, finished. I’m sure suitable substitutes can be found. Personally, I’d rather see you on a lute. Not many inimical properties in a lute.”

  “All right.” The battered musician seemed to straighten a little. “You’ll see. One day … one day I’ll be as good as you.” He indicated the duar. “How do you make that kind of magic, anyway?”

  Jon-Tom shrugged modestly. “Damned if I know. All I’m certain of is that the magic’s in the music.”

  “That’s good enough for me. I’ll get better, I will. You’ll see. Someday I’ll be the best!”

  “Oh yes, that’s real determination! I just know it!”

  A voluptuous form rushed forward to throw her arms around the startled but hardly displeased Hinckel. “I’ll help you,” Ansibette cooed, “you poor, put-upon, deprived excuse for a wandering bard. I can imagine what it’s been like for you, to be denigrated in first one and now two worlds. It’s not fair!”

  Stunned beyond the power to respond, Jon-Tom for just an instant felt a pang of regret. Then he remembered Talea, and Buncan, and home, and was calm.

  Calm, but not entirely at peace.

  Mudge nudged him. “Well now, mate, explain this one to me, if you will. Is there some mysterious form o’ sorcery still at work in our midst, or wot?”

  Jon-Tom looked on as Ansibette repeatedly and enthusiastically kissed and reassured the still startled but rapidly recovering Hinckel.

  “Not sorcery, Mudge. The taste displayed by human females can be inexplicably perverse.”

  “Oi, is that all it is? Why didn’t you know, mate, that the taste o’ all female types is perverse? ’Tis a well-known law o’ nature, it ’tis.”

  “I’m familiar with the corollary. The most beautiful women always gravitate to the ugliest males. There seems to be something especially alluring about emaciated, tone-deaf musicians. I think it must be one of nature’s ways of limiting population growth. Hopefully one of these days it’ll breed out of the species.”

  “’Ere now, mate, don’t act the gibberin’ walrus. Maybe she’s a princess an’ all that rot, wot, but I don’t think she ’olds a candle to Talea. Or a leg.” The otter considered thoughtfully. “Other parts, now …”

  “You’re right; she doesn’t,” Jon-Tom declared conclusively. And he was only lying a little bit.

  Her fingers locked behind his thin neck, Princess Ansibette of Borobos was beaming as she stared into Hinckel’s watery eyes. “I’ll see that you get the best of help. We have wonderful music teachers at court.” Taking his arm in hers, she guided him gently toward the lifeboat.

  Wolf Gathers’s expression showed that he’d seen it all before. “That’s fine for that son of a bitch, but what are we supposed to do?”

  Seshenshe stepped forward and ran a thoughtful, clawed finger up and down the center of the guitarist’s chest. “There’ss not a court that can’t do without another mussician or two. If they really can play.”

  “Sure we can play,” he shot back. “We just need a new lead singer.”

  “Then if you’ve no objection to accompanying ssome fancy caterwauling, perhapss I can find usse for you.” Opening her mouth, she demonstrated one of the sweetest, purest sopranos Jon-Tom had ever heard. At least, it was sweet and pure until it broke into a succession of growls and yowls. Raw and untutored, grating and harsh, it sounded like a dozen alley cats in heat.

  “Hey, that’s not bad!” An admiring Zimmerman was already humming the backbeat to the refrain. “Sounds a lot like Pearl Jam.”

  “Or the Chili Peppers,” Hill suggested.

  Gathers was nodding agreeably. “We can work with that, dudes. Does this gig, like, you know, pay?”

  “Room and board,” Seshenshe replied, “but on a royal sscale. Ass dessignated court mussicianss you will be well looked after.”

  The trio exchanged looks. Then Zimmerman spoke for all of them. “It’s the best offer we’ve had in a while. Got to be better than playing clubs in Passaic.”

  Hill gave a little shudder. “Anything’d be better than that.”

  Bearing in mind that he was addressing a princess, Gathers inquired hesitantly, “Would there be any, like, drink to go along with the food?”

  Seshenshe smiled toothily. “The finesst sspiritss my country can produce sshall be yourss to ssample. My people have a long tradition of brewing and vintnering.”

  “Well, all right, then!” Hill looked content. “Sounds okay to me, dudes.”

  “One last thing.” Gathers started to say something more, looked helplessly to Jon-Tom. “Would this royal court be maybe, like, you know … integrated?”

  Jon-Tom smiled reassuringly. “You’ll find that all the warm-blooded species mix pretty freely here. I’m sure you’ll encounter other humans in Paressi Glissar.”

  “That’s the way o’ things.” Mudge winked. “O’ course, ’tis your choice if you choose to restrict yourselves to—” Jon-Tom clamped a hand over the otter’s muzzle.

  “Let’s let the boys find a few things out for themselves, why don’t we? They don’t need to be confused any more than they already are.” Led by the soldiers, they started wadi
ng out to the waiting lifeboat.

  “No Sixth Avenue Deli,” Hill was muttering, “but I guess a royal court can’t be all bad.”

  Mudge tugged at his friend’s sleeve. “Oi then, mate. Wot about all that music wot’s caught up in this place, don’t you know?”

  “I was getting to that.” Standing on the shore, Jon-Tom turned back to face the central mountain, still shrouded in its surly cloak of dark cumulus. Unlimbering the duar, he began a last time to sing. This time his words needed no otherworldly amplification.

  “Can’t bind the music

  Can’t tie it down

  A song’s got to be free

  To soar and bring light

  To every corner of the world

  Let the music fly

  Let there be such a sight

  Of sounds twisted and curled

  That the air itself takes flight!”

  Oh, what a sound there came then! As the black clouds broke apart, all the music Hieronymus Hinckel had stealthily entrapped came rushing down the mountain in a great galumphing glorious wave of pure sound, each individual note like a fragment of mother-of-pearl bathed in a hundred floodlights.

  It washed over them where they stood, a grand tsunami of melody and rhythm, harmony and tempo. It riffled their hair and teased their nerve endings, a concentration of sound the likes of which none of them had ever heard before or would ever hear again.

  Quicker than a favorite memory, it was gone, dissipating out over the ocean, dispersing to the many lands from which it had been filched. Tunes returning to their instruments, songs reverting to their singers, eerie high-pitched wails reabsorbed and relearned by a hundred pods of waiting whales. It left Jon-Tom and his companions with a lingering feeling of great warmth and contentment.

  Then he heard a noise he hadn’t experienced in quite some time. One he’d nearly forgotten, so immersed had he been in his family and spellsinging and assorted adventures. Very different from that offered by the cetaceans many days before, it arose from the princesses and the soldiers, from the band members and even (albeit somewhat reluctantly) from a much-chastened Hinckel.